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Speaker Karsten D. Voigt is a former member of the German Bundestag and served as the Coordinator of German-North American Cooperation at the Foreign Office of Germany from 1999 to 2010. He also served as Vice-President (1992-1994) and then President (1994-1996) of the Parliamentary Assembly of NATO.

From 1976 to 1998, he was a member of the German Bundestag, where he served as Foreign Policy Speaker of the Social Democratic faction from 1983 to 1998. For many years he was Chairman of the German-Soviet, and later the German-Russian parliamentary group.

Voigt is a board member of Aspen Germany and a Senior Associate fellow and member of the presidium of the German Council on Foreign Policy.

Indeed, the relationship between Ireland and Israel is profoundly interesting. It is multi-dimensional, involving similar historical paths as well as traditional socio-economic relations. It is also incredibly important to consider, given the rapidly shifting international environment both small states find themselves in.

Please join the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies and the Center for German and European Studies at Brandeis University for a roundtable discussion on the subject of the Israeli/Irish relationship on Monday, March 11 from 5:30 – 7 p.m. in the Mandel Reading Room (third floor, Mandel Center for the Humanities).

The discussion will touch on aspects of Ireland’s and Israel’s national liberation movements and how the relationship has changed from the beginning to the present, as well as implications for that relationship going forward. Panelists will include a former Ambassador of Israel to Ireland, Alexander Kaye (the Karl, Harry, and Helen Stoll Assistant Professor of Israel Studies and Assistant Professor in the Department of Near East and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University), and Frances Malio (the Sophia Moses Robison Professor Emerita of Jewish Studies and History at Wellesley University.

The discussion will be moderated by Dr. Lisa Lynch, Provost and the Maurice B. Hexter Professor of Social and Economic Policy at Brandeis University.

Violent extremism is a perpetual alarming issue for a globalizing world. While much has changed in the years since the 9/11 attacks brought the issue to the forefront of global conversation, violent extremism remains salient in today’s world. Extremist groups rise from the ashes of other fallen extremist groups, leading to what appears to be an unending cycle of attacks, conflict, and carnage. Meanwhile, as globalization continues, movement of people, information, and ideas becomes easier, a development which, if employed maliciously, can be taken advantage of by opportunistic extremist groups.

Indeed, as time has shown, the issue of violent extremism has been both complicated and pervasive. The ideologies behind such extremism have been able to stick, even in the face of a massive international response. As the world deals with the innovations globalization continues to provide, so too may violent extremists adapt and propagate their ideologies through new methods that can perpetuate their staying power.

It is clear that the solutions that the international community has implemented throughout the post-9/11 Global War on Terrorism have been ineffective at comprehensively dealing with violent extremism. There are, though, other solutions.

On Feb. 27, 2019, please join the Ethics Center, the Heller School for Social Policy, the International & Global Studies Program, the Politics Department, and the Bahalim Fund for a panel discussion on Countering & Preventing Violent Extremism, which will discuss recognizing the signs of radicalization and recruitment early in the process and how to address the issue of violent extremism at its roots.

The panel will feature Farah Pandith, a former State Department official who has spearheaded Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) both inside and outside government settings. It will also feature Paul Turner, a leader in global conflict resolution, and Saidi Abdi, a leader in refugee support and the Associate Director for Community Relations at the Boston Children’s Hospital Refugee Trauma and Resilience Center.

IGS was very pleased to join the Heller School in cosponsoring a day-long conference on Africa’s development. The economic growth in Nigeria, Rwanda, and throughout East Africa shows that this is probably more than just a commodity boom: we might be looking a real, long-term expansion.

Which leads to some interesting questions. Why is growth now so much more robust? And what can be done to make it sustainable — in both the sense of enduring and healthy? Does the African diaspora have a significant role to play?

My question, for anyone who would like to comment: is China treating Africa the way that European colonists did? Or is China, a fellow developing country, simply trying to find mutual benefit from its investments in Africa? Or are we seeing some combination of the two?

Join the History of Ideas program for the third movie night of this spring to view Ai Weiwei’s Human Flow. The film examines the massive scale of the modern refugee crisis by following refugee stories from around the world. Come by to watch and discuss this incredibly influential film.

Here’s a question for viewers to respond to, if they like: what do you think the refugees of the world need most to start their new lives? Citizenship? Work? A new home? Who could best help them get what they need?

Join the class of Critical Perspectives on Health for the screening and presentation of the film, The Life Equation which discusses the topic of global health in the era of big data. The event will include a viewing of the film, and a Q and A session with the Emmy-award winning director Rob Tinworth. Stop by this great event to learn more about this amazing film.

And here’s a question for people who saw the film: what do think is the greatest potential benefit of big data for global health? What is the greatest danger of using big data to allocate resources?

Professor Sung-Yoon Lee of Tufts University gave an erudite talk today on a rather gruesome subject: the true nature of the North Korean regime that we so often mock but rarely take seriously. I was especially moved by his account of the country’s 1990s famine, which could have been eradicated for $100 million, if only the North Korean regime had thought millions of lives were worth cutting a slice off its $7 billion military budget.

I was left reconsidering my own attitude towards the “Hermit Kingdom.” Do we patronize North Korea when we laugh at its leader’s haircut? If we reward the North Koreans — again — for pausing their nuclear tests, are we giving them the tools to continue oppressing their population? Do we lose sight of the true nature of the North Korea problem if we get so caught up in negotiations that we overlook the sheer viciousness of the regime?

But no doubt you have your own responses to Professor Lee’s talk. What did you hear that changed the way you think about the problem of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program?

David Wang’s lecture this afternoon about ghosts in contemporary Chinese fiction was another tour de force. Such a wonderful exploration of intriguing question: if China became an atheistic and realist society after 1949, why is are its writers now so fascinated by spirits and the transmigration of souls?

The lecture left me with a lot of questions about the life of the imagination in China today, but also had me wondering about alternative histories — the particular kind of haunting sense that the world could have been different. So you can answer either of the following two questions:

What story of imaginary hauntings intrigued you the most, and why? Is there a novel you will now read based on Professor Wang’s suggestions? Or…

In what sense do you imagine the world we have studied is in some way haunted by an historical legacy? If you could write a novel with a haunting or an alternative history, what would it be? Which of the styles that Prof. Wang mentioned would your novel resemble?